What's New - August 2000

As a research site, EBRI Online maintains old listings in the
"Whats New" page, even though some of the older links may no longer
function. If you reach a bad link, go back to the main site by deleting everything after
".com" or ".org" or ".net" in the address. Since we maintainwww.ebri.org as a research and education resource, and not current news, we
hope you will understand our policy and the use for which it is maintained.

The Small Employer Health Benefits Survey (SEHBS) examines a number of issues
related to the decision by small employers (companies with two to 50 workers) about
whether to offer health insurance coverage to workers. The SEHBS is co-sponsored by the
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), and the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research
Institute (EBRI) and Consumer Health Education Council (CHEC). SEHBS was conducted by
Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc. More information will become available at this Web
site after release of the survey.

The EBRI Issue Brief
and EBRI Notes for the month of
August 2000 are available online for ordering. The August Issue Brief is entitled
"The Working Uninsured: Who They Are, How They Have Changed, and the Consequences of
Being Uninsured, With Presidential Candidate Proposals Outlined." The August Notes articles are
"The Economic Costs of the Uninsured" and "Recent Evidence on Pension
Coverage and Sponsorship, by Employer Size and Industry."

The Working Uninsured: Campaign 2000
Proposals From the Presidential Candidates excerpts portions of the upcoming
August 2000 EBRI Issue Brief dealing with presidential candidate proposals to
reduce the number of uninsured Americans. Democratic and Republican proposals are
explained and contrasted, and URLs for various health-group and national third-party
policy statements on health coverage are also provided.

Facts from EBRI:Leave of Absence Benefits Among Private-Sector Employers: Paid Holiday, Vacation, and
Sick Leave is a July 2000 fact sheet from EBRI.

Value
of Benefits Survey: "Most workers are generally satisfied with their
employment-based benefits and continue to rank health care as the most important of their
employee benefits, according to the findings of the 2000 Value of Benefits Survey
conducted by WorldatWork in collaboration with the Employee Benefit Research Institute
(EBRI)."

If a title link above no longer works, click
here for the GAO Index of Reports and Testimony, FY99, and search for the report by
entering words or phrases from the title. Reports will also be added to GAO's
searchable WAIS database in ASCII and PDF formats within 24 hours of the original
posting. Any individual report may be retrieved directly in text and PDF formats with the
following URL: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?RPTNO replacing RPTNO with the report
number (e.g., GAO/OCG-98-1).

If your computer does not already have the free Adobe Acrobat viewer
software to read PDF files, click
here for the one-time download necessary to read PDF publications.

(8/28/00) "Escape Magazine has launched a campaign to
amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to require employers to provide European-length
vacations. In its "Work
to Live" campaign, visitors to www.escapemag.com
can fill out a petition to be presented to Congress this fall, which would amend the FLSA
to force businesses to give full-time workers three weeks of vacation if they have been at
a job for one year, and four weeks after three years. Thus far, more than 30,000 people
have filled out the petition, and the magazine plans to lobby members of the House Labor
Committee, petitions in hand." The Thursday, August 24, 2000, Employment Policy
Foundation Newswatch provided this alert.

(8/28/00) Click
here to participate in the AFL-CIO Internet Community Online Labor Day Festival,
August 30-September 6, 2000.

(8/28/00) An original article available at Medscape
General Medicine, an online peer-reviewed general medicine journal,
"Inadequate Health Insurance: Costs and Consequences" by Karen Donelan,
Catherine M. DesRoches, and Cathy Schoen, requires free registration to read.

(8/24/00) The Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health's Health News
Index "includes questions about major health stories covered in the news. The
Health News Index is designed to help the news media and people in the health field gain a
better understanding of which health stories in the news Americans are following and what
they understand about those health issues. Every two months, Kaiser/Harvard issues a new
index report."
The July/August 2000 edition is available.

(8/22/00) "Talk
to the Candidates is a nonpartisan, online interactive forum hosted by the American
Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) through washingtonpost.com's Viewpoint program. In
sponsoring this forum, ACLI seeks to provide voterslife insurance company employees,
retirees, agents, and policyholders, as well as the general publica focused
opportunity to talk with candidates about key industry issues."

(8/22/00) The National Underwriter Company reports on August 17, 2000, Bipartisan
Proposal Would Allow LTC Insurance In `Cafeteria' Plans by Craig R. Springfield as
posted on the BenefitsLink Web site, S. 2225 and H.R. 3872, bipartisan legislation
introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives, would change the Federal income tax
treatment of long term care policies.

(8/21/00) "Established in 1972, New
Ways to Work's primary focus has been to encourage experimentation with work time
options -- job sharing, work sharing, time-income tradeoffs, flextime, flexplace and
various types of leaves -- as a means of addressing employment related social and economic
issues."

(8/21/00) The RFP Guide was developed by SPARK
(Society of Professional Administrators and Recordkeepers) to assist plan sponsors in
evaluating and/or selecting service providers for their defined contribution plan,
especially their 401(k) plan. The
2nd Edition of the RFP Guide is available for ordering.

(8/18/00) "The United
States @Work 2000 study (formerly called America@Work) continues to
track and trend the Workforce Commitment Index, Aon Consultings national
measure of employee commitment; investigates how organizations are performing on key
workplace practices, from the employees perspective; and determines which workplace
practices have the greatest influence on workforce commitment." Go to this page for
order information and to see an overview of the study results.

(8/18/00) Kathy Biehl's column published August 15, 2000, on Bill
Tracking Resources provides links to online bill tracking sites for all fifty states,
plus D.C. and the U.S. government. "Almost all of these sites provide the full-text
of bills, as well as committee and hearing schedules and other tools for keeping an eye on
the development of pending legislation."

(8/17/00) The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland published "Are
We Saving Enough?" by Jagadeesh Gokhale in its July 2000 issue of Economic
Commentary, suggesting that saving rates would have to be much higher for most
American households if they are to maintain their living standards through retirement.

(8/17/00) On May 24, 1999, Sen. Rod Grams introduced the Social Security Benefits
Guarantee Act, S. 1102, a bill that would guarantee the right of individuals to receive
full social security benefits under title II of the Social Security Act in full with an
accurate annual cost-of-living adjustment. In effect, this legislation would provide each
Social Security recipient with a certificate guaranteeing a certain monthly benefit
regardless of trust fund solvency and/or other issues.

On the same date, Sen. Grams introduced a companion bill, Personal Security and Wealth
in Retirement Act, S. 1103, to reform Social Security by creating personalized retirement
accounts, and for other purposes.

(8/16/00) On April 13, 2000, Rep. Jerry Weller introduced a bill, H.R. 4274, that would
allow employers to provide computers to employees for personal use as a nontaxable fringe
benefit. The
complete text of this bill, Digital Divide Access to Technology Act (or DATA Act), may
be viewed at Rep. Wellers Web site.

(8/15/00) Elections
2000 is acomprehensive election metasite produced by the University
of Michigan Documents Center.

(8/15/00) On June 6, 2000, Sen. John Ashcroft introduced S. 2671, Pension Opportunities
for Womens Equality in Retirement Act, which would amend the tax code to increase
contribution and benefit limits of qualified pension plans. The
press release from Sen. Ashcrofts Web site gives more details.

(8/14/00) The Dr. Koop site reports Survey
Says Politicians Misjudge Consumers' Healthcare Concerns. "Findings from the
Discovery Health Channel survey entitled, 'Americans and Washington Insiders on Health
Issues: Does Health Information and Policy Require First Aid?' suggest that federal
policymakers have significantly misjudged the amount of health information that consumers
want and require, as well as the depth of that information."

(8/14/00) H.R. 4040, Long-Term Care Security Act, to provide for the establishment of a
program under which long-term care insurance is made available to Federal employees,
members of the uniformed services, and civilian and military retirees, was cleared by the
Senate in July and sent to the White House to besigned into law.

(8/11/00) The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has released Research
Findings No.11: Health Insurance Status of the Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population:
1998. "This report from the 1998 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS)
provides preliminary estimates of the health insurance status of civilian
noninstitutionalized U.S. population during the first half of 1998, including the size and
characteristics of the population with private health insurance, with public insurance,
and without any health care coverage."

(8/3/00) The
Creative Approach to Staffing by Charlene Marmer Solomon at Workforce.com relates
how companies are becoming creative in their use of employee benefits in their recruiting
and retention programs.

(8/2/00) H.R. 1264, the Right-to-Know National Payroll Act, sponsored by Rep. Peter
Hoekstra (R-Mich.), would require employers to list their share of Social Security and
Medicare on employees' W-2 forms, heightening employee awareness of the taxes paid on
their behalf. This bill passed the House on July 18, 2000, and is being prepared for the
Senate floor.

(8/1/00) The Social
Science Research Network, devoted to worldwide dissemination of social science
research, is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social
sciences.

(8/1/00) The National
Health Care Purchasing Institute "is an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation to advance health care purchasing by Fortune 500 companies, the Health Care
Financing Administration, purchasing alliances, and public employee purchasers."

(8/1/00) The A.M.
Best Web site provides a free database of Best's Ratings with the financial strength
rating, from A++ to F, for over 6,000 life/health, property /casualty, and international
insurance companies.